Saturday 28 February 2009 19.01 EST
First published on Saturday 28 February 2009 19.01 EST

I'm not very good at museums and galleries. And the forts and palaces of Rajasthan are no exception. Their suits of armour fail to bring the warrior Rajputs alive for me, and as I drag my heels from one glass case to another, my mind wanders to cups of chai.

But at Neemrana Fort Palace, one of India's oldest heritage hotel, history suddenly gets interesting. And that's because you learn about it not by following a woman with a flag or struggling with an audio tour, but in mid-air. Yes, this hotel's USP is Flying Fox, south Asia's first zipwire experience, an aerial adventure where visitors "zip" along wires slung between the surrounding mountains, attached by a harness and pulley, and propelled by nothing but gravity. Between the five zip runs, you listen to guides talking about kings and customs, droughts and battles. It's like history with an adrenalin sweetener.

I was helped into a harness on one of the many roofs of the palace, and we walked, jingling with clips and carabiners, past people finishing their lunch on the veranda. Zipwires, aka death slides, have long been installed in more obvious places, such as forests and canyons in Europe and North America, but this "heritage" zip-tour is new, brought to Rajasthan by a Delhi-based British duo who felt the tourism offering there was becoming hackneyed.

It certainly feels fresh, in a state that is better known for ornate buildings and camel treks. But are heritage sites and zipwires a good mix? I anticipated ancient ramparts marred by metal machinery and lead-filled holes, but all I could see so far was a high wire that could have been an electricity cable.

As we walked up the hill behind the palace, my English guide, Rachel, explained that before Flying Fox opened in January, few tourists visited these mountains. Yet these hills covered in Mexican Acacia are the Aravalli - at two billion years, the world's oldest mountains. From here I could see exactly why the Neemrana Fort Palace had been built there. "It makes sense when you see how difficult it would have been to invade," said Rachel, as we took in the view from a ruined 15th-century lookout.

After a brief demonstration - attaching my harness to the wire, braking, using a gloved hand on the wire, and pulling myself in should I stop short - I was ready. I'd been reassured that the cable came from Switzerland and met European safety standards. But where was the infrastructure? There was no big metal launch station - I had to step off the old lookout itself. And the wire, tied to an unobtrusive metal pole, was anchored to a tree. This, plus a few steps to help us up the hillside, totalled the additions to the landscape. If I had any environmental gripe, it was that there was so little tree clearance that I might be ducking branches as I swooped down.

Before I set off, Rachel pointed out the brick kilns and the temple to the goddess Kali on the plains, the 18th-century stepwell, built to serve the area after a severe drought, and the merchant route to Afghanistan, near enough for Neemrana's kings to levy taxes on passing traders. I watched a kite take off from the wire, then I swung off the platform myself, and gently picked up speed. I soon found my mild adrenalin buzz giving way to a feeling of breezy relaxation. There was even time to look around. I watched a shepherd driving his goats beneath me, and studied the patchwork of mustard fields gleaming yellow in the sun. The only sounds were the gentle noise of the pulley, plus music, car horns and babble drifting up from Neemrana village, and from the rooftops, swimming pools and restaurants of the palace.

The aerial view of the palace was a particular treat. Built in 1464, it is like a labyrinth of ramps, staircases, corridors and balconies; I had got lost looking for my room several times. Now I could see all its 11 levels, the height of its impenetrable facades, and its built-in reservoir. No wonder the building became too costly to keep as a home, and was abandoned in the 1940s by the last of a long line of rulers, the Chauhans.

It awaited a buyer for four decades, the marble and mirrors pillaged, the ramparts crumbling. In 1986 two business men, Aman Nath and Francis Wacziarg, decided to buy what nobody else would take on and restore the wreck. Looking down from the wire, I could only marvel at the scale of the place and the heroism of their undertaking. The hotel finally opened in 1991, offering guests the chance to live as India's kings had lived.

Their example was soon followed, and today hundreds of heritage hotels surpass Neemrana in luxury and price. But for the men behind the Flying Fox concept, Jono Walter and Dickie McCallum, Neemrana was the perfect site, particularly as it is within easy reach of Delhi. I left the sprawling city after breakfast, and by midday had checked in, showered, snooped around and even tried the audio tour. And after a long lunch, I was now soaking up mid-afternoon sun while dangling from a wire. It would make a perfect stop en route to Jaipur.

The hotel itself may be less grandiose than other palaces, but it is charming. There are no televisions in the rooms, no marbled halls, swanky souvenir shops or women handing out towels in the bathrooms. After the zipwire I had a massage, pottered down to the village, then read my book in a swing seat in the "Palace of Wind", overloooking the plains.

I decided that Flying Fox and Neemrana were a perfect match, both low-key and unfussy. Lovers of extreme luxury or extreme sports will not find their needs met here. At the second landing platform I met an Indian woman who was "zipping" for her 62nd birthday. "I didn't tell my children I was doing this, in case they tried to stop me," she laughed. Anyone over five and under 75 can "zip", and the history bits are lively enough to engage children. One girl was thrilled to hear that her favourite Bollywood actor, Amitabh Bachchan, had zipped on to Neemrana's ramparts in a film called Major Saab, back in the 90s.

It took two hours to zip down all five wires, and with each one I gained speed and expertise: lying back for the right aerodynamic, sticking my feet in the air, dangling from one hand. Once I waved at someone zipping down a wire beneath me, and the whole thing felt briefly like a bizarre spaghetti junction in the sky. Suddenly, the possibilities for zipwires seemed huge. No wonder Walter and McCallum have plans for one at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, and seven more.

"How about the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal or the Ganges?" I asked as I took off my harness. At the time, I meant it. There is something about flying through the air that makes you feel anything is possible.

Getting thereOne night's B&B at the Neemrana Fort Palace with one Flying Fox session costs from £75 per person based on two sharing, bookable as part of a tailor-made trip through Wild Frontiers (020 7736 3968; wildfrontiers.co.uk). It offers a 10-night tailormade tour of Rajasthan which costs from £995, not including flights.